Stop #12 – Far South / Catlins Area

The Catlins area is the southernmost coastline of the south island. We toured the area and worked our way up the east coast to arrive in Christchurch that next evening. Our first stop was Curio Bay. A petrified forest at the coast is a very unique stop which we explored. This area is also known for its yellow eyed penguins but they are very difficult to find.
Nugget Point Lighthouse - Catlins
We also visited Purakaunui Falls and Nugget Point wit’s beautiful lighthouse and seal colony. As we ventured farther up the coast we made a stop at Larnach Castle just outside of Dunedin. New Zealand doesn’t have any real castles but this was the home in the style of a Scottish Castle built by the founder of one of New Zealand’s first banks in the 1800’s.

Stop #13 – Christchurch / University of Canterbury

This stop was our final stop on the trip. Monica is attending the University of Canterbury for her 2019 spring semester. We arrived into Christchurch on Saturday and her classes resumed the next Monday. Canterbury Museum, Christchurch Botanical Gardens and other parts of the city center. As classes resumed we spent time touring campus, visited Monica's flat and met some of her NZ roommates and friends.
Christchurch Cathedral in the City Center

Stop #14 – Arthurs Pass

While in the Christchurch area Doris and I spent a day at Arthur’s Pass National Park. The pass is an important trade route for NZ as it is the best route from the eastern side of the south island where Christchurch resides to the western side.
Arthur's Pass Highway
The eastern side has a number of ski resorts that are just over an hour's drive from Christchurch. We visited the Kura Tawhiti / Castle Hill area, Cave Stream Scenic Reserve, Devils Punchbowl Waterfall and Arthur's Pass before we made our way back to Christchurch.


Logistics

We traveled to New Zealand (NZ) via New Zealand Air in both directions. We arrived in Auckland and met Monica at the airport. She flew up from Christchurch on Jetstar. We rented a car from Thrifty; driving a Holden Commodore (2018) and toured various areas on the north island. New Zealand follow’s the UK’s traffic laws for the most part with the most prominent one with driving on the left hand side of the road. We drove south to Wellington and took the interislander ferry across to Pincton. At Pincton we retrieved another Commodore from Thrifty (same color!) and continued on our way. As we traveled we stayed in Air B&B’s for all nights except two. On the west coast of the south island we could not find a B&B south of the Glacier area. This is a very isolated area between the southern alps and the sea. We stayed at the Haast River Hotel and Holiday Park. The second night was our cruise in Doubtful Sound on the ship. For trip planning we use the web and store all plans in google docs and google maps. We create personal maps in google maps for route planning and navigation. We save offline maps in google maps and also use maps.me app for offline maps were more effective. We use our phones and a Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100 for most pictures and video. For water sports we use our Hero 7 white Go Pro for pictures and video. For tracking some hikes we use Strava (iPhone App). We use Relive (iPhone App) for fly over views of some hikes. We purchased SIM cards for our phones from Vodaphone for cell and data when in NZ.
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